Probably on Mac Pros too but at least one can easily swap out a card in a Mac Pro so you don't hear that much about it as it is easily fixed and you can deal with the GPU vendor if necessary, directly. I had several cards replaced over the years as I always added the GPU cards in my Mac Pros myself. The MBPs are a different story and many have been plagued with GPU failures and it is a motherboard swap out then. Not always easy to get this done although now there has been some movement by Apple who hopefully put the screws on the third party manufacturers. This is why I am hoping for a more in house approach to GPU technology in general.
Why aren't the iMacs, which uses the exact same laptop class parts and in some cases the exact same parts included in the recall. Why isn't there news of windows laptops, which use the same GPU, failing? Last I checked Imagination is no more in house than ARM is.
If you added a GPU yourself of course you would call the manufacturer but if Apple sent you the computer, no matter what was in it it is their responsibility.
But then again why should I defend anyone when my Macbook Pro is included in this recall?
The big problem as I see it is heat, there was no mention in this article but I can't imagine that this GPU would run fan free at its full capability. That is even considering the very significant power savings the 14 nm processes offer. Hopefully I'm wrong here.
Yeah if they manage to get say 25 GFLOPs per Watt, the high-end chip would still be over 20W and would need active cooling. iOS products are about 5W. The Apple TV has a 5W power supply so it would need a bigger PSU. The chip cost would be higher too but another factor in the cost would be storage as you couldn't fit many games on the 8GB storage it has. It would need about 32GB minimum. Then there's the controller. You can't sell a console without a controller, nor can you sell one without games available and that won't be many in the App Store yet.
I don't know what causes the xBox and PS games to be so large but I can guess that the hardware needs to be so powerful is due to brute force way graphics are implemented.
Consoles have been the ones that pushed for bypassing OpenGL and DirectX the way Metal does. John Carmack (Doom etc) was complaining about the PC side not allowing this so easily because of the huge variety of GPUs. Consoles like iOS devices have a much more limited target so optimizing is easier.
A lot of the size of games comes from textures. Every 3D object has a 2D image wrapped around it so all those texture images add up to a few GB. Another storage hog is audio:
"the Los Santos of GTA V measures at least 48.7 square miles - the budget for GTA V is reportedly over £170 million ($267.3 million) - only one Hollywood movie has cost more to make, and that was 2007’s Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, which cost a cool £190 million ($300 million) to make."
He mostly dismissed the idea but "Cook was asked if the company was interested in bringing gaming experiences to televisions, responding: "It could be interesting."". He said something like this when he was asked about the watch:
Maybe that's his tell on what they're doing next. 'is interesting' is more definite than 'could be interesting'. They probably looked into it and Airplay gaming made sense but the console idea isn't so straightforward because they have to make a controller. I already designed a controller for them:
It would have 4 shoulder buttons but touch means it is context-sensitive. It would be no less comfortable to hold than the NES controller and the 3 pads would use the 4-corner springs for clicking anywhere. The magic trackpad is $69 but this would have a built-in flat battery and be no more than $49. The console would then be $199 with about 32GB storage vs the $99 Apple TV.
The big hurdle is getting AAA games support. There's loads of 360/PS3 games to port over of course. The console numbers aren't huge. The best selling console of all time was the PS2 with 155m units in 12 years. That's about 13m per year. The Apple TV is already close to that, Tim reported about 8m per year in the past. iOS devices sell over 200m in 1 year.
The Ouya console failed at this market and it even had game streaming with AAA titles. Even a single major AAA game missing means people want to buy another console. For a gamer, the question is why wouldn't you buy one of the major consoles? Why would you send $199 for an Apple TV box with hardly any games that you want to play? If they built up a library of 360/PS3 ports for launch then they're in but they'd have to get most of the biggest titles and they get locked down by Sony/Microsoft. Some games are even developed by them in-house.
The touch controller would allow types of games that would be difficult on consoles e.g:
[VIDEO]
The good thing is that if the gaming falls short, it's still an Apple TV, which people are buying without the gaming part. If parents have younger kids, it's $100 extra to keep them occupied with cheap games bought digitally as well as party games vs $300+ for a dedicated console with $40-60 games.
The top-end PowerVR would be a bit wasteful to use. Just the latest PowerVR for the iOS devices would stay passively cooled and rival last-gen consoles for quality. They'll limit games to 4GB-8GB anyway. Using the same chips as iPads means they save on volume purchases.
I don't know what causes the xBox and PS games to be so large but I can guess that the hardware needs to be so powerful is due to brute force way graphics are implemented. It's interesting to me how Apple is building iOS to handle graphics quite differently from other platforms. I see Apple getting the iPad to where it can do immersive graphics easily as good as any other platform. Especially with Swift and Metal included in the mix. I don't think the low end as you defined it is the way to go, but games that can easily done in a short stretch of time may have a following. These can be the type of games that can be written easily by a small team of programmers, sold for a lot less money and enjoyed for a fraction of the time.
Actually, a console would be the ultimate implementation of metal. It is one platform with one set of hardware specs and low level access. The reason why games are so large is due to the high resolution models, textures, sounds, and any prerendered cutscenes.
Why aren't the iMacs, which uses the exact same laptop class parts and in some cases the exact same parts included in the recall. Why isn't there news of windows laptops, which use the same GPU, failing? Last I checked Imagination is no more in house than ARM is.
If you added a GPU yourself of course you would call the manufacturer but if Apple sent you the computer, no matter what was in it it is their responsibility.
But then again why should I defend anyone when my Macbook Pro is included in this recall?
Sorry, I am not sure why you are venting at me? The title, "Apple partner Imagination unveils PowerVR 'super-GPU'" seems more in-house than NVidia et al to me. I would just like to see better reliability from GPU cards and I've been a professional user of them since Apple was born so I have some experience. I am aware this is aimed at iOS devices but if you read AI regularly you might have read I have been saying for a long time this partnership could hold promise for Macs too. Hence I wrote : "In a year or two we may be saying goodbye Apple hardware Achilles Heel."
Or are you simply defending Nvidia? In which case that's fine.
Maybe that's his tell on what they're doing next. 'is interesting' is more definite than 'could be interesting'. They probably looked into it and Airplay gaming made sense but the console idea isn't so straightforward because they have to make a controller. I already designed a controller for them:
It would have 4 shoulder buttons but touch means it is context-sensitive. It would be no less comfortable to hold than the NES controller and the 3 pads would use the 4-corner springs for clicking anywhere. The magic trackpad is $69 but this would have a built-in flat battery and be no more than $49. The console would then be $199 with about 32GB storage vs the $99 Apple TV.
The big hurdle is getting AAA games support. There's loads of 360/PS3 games to port over of course. The console numbers aren't huge. The best selling console of all time was the PS2 with 155m units in 12 years. That's about 13m per year. The Apple TV is already close to that, Tim reported about 8m per year in the past. iOS devices sell over 200m in 1 year.
The Ouya console failed at this market and it even had game streaming with AAA titles. Even a single major AAA game missing means people want to buy another console. For a gamer, the question is why wouldn't you buy one of the major consoles? Why would you send $199 for an Apple TV box with hardly any games that you want to play? If they built up a library of 360/PS3 ports for launch then they're in but they'd have to get most of the biggest titles and they get locked down by Sony/Microsoft. Some games are even developed by them in-house.
The touch controller would allow types of games that would be difficult on consoles e.g:
[VIDEO]
Wii U already does this. I find it funny how people always dismiss Nintendo. I just finished playing Pikmin 3 which requires pointing and tap controls and that game was absolutely BREATHTAKING.
Nintendo has been making some stupid decisions lately and they need to be acquired by someone smarter. I would love to see Nintendo games on a sleek Apple console. Nintendo's latest hardware are anything but sleek.
Sorry, I am not sure why you are venting at me? The title, "Apple partner Imagination unveils PowerVR 'super-GPU'" seems more in-house than NVidia et al to me. I would just like to see better reliability from GPU cards and I've been a professional user of them since Apple was born so I have some experience. I am aware this is aimed at iOS devices but if you read AI regularly you might have read I have been saying for a long time this partnership could hold promise for Macs too. Hence I wrote : "In a year or two we may be saying goodbye Apple hardware Achilles Heel."
Or are you simply defending Nvidia? In which case that's fine.
Yeah, sorry for piling on you. We are so like bullies ;-). Hope you get your wish, great mac GPU very soon.
Probably on Mac Pros too but at least one can easily swap out a card in a Mac Pro so you don't hear that much about it as it is easily fixed and you can deal with the GPU vendor if necessary, directly. I had several cards replaced over the years as I always added the GPU cards in my Mac Pros myself. The MBPs are a different story and many have been plagued with GPU failures and it is a motherboard swap out then. Not always easy to get this done although now there has been some movement by Apple who hopefully put the screws on the third party manufacturers. This is why I am hoping for a more in house approach to GPU technology in general.
If I'd have to guess I'd say its cooling that's the main differentiator on macbook; heat of course is the major killer in electronic components. Was this an engineering issue from Apple (not enough cooling), or a quality control issue from the GPU producer, flaky components. Maybe a combination of both cause the problem.
"the Wii appeals to quite the broad spectrum of people, being especially popular among boys age 6 -11 and women age 25 - 34. Most interesting is the Wii's ability to captivate the older women audience, as the console's use by women over 35 is much higher than that of the Wii's competition. And they're apparently playing Wii Fit, Guitar Hero and Rock Band, games cited as favorites among that group."
It's the same reason iOS devices are generally dismissed for gaming. The players tend not to be too serious about games. It has taken a wrong turn because Nintendo had a huge part in making gaming what it is but Sony took advantage of the fact that kids who grew up on Nintendo wanted to move onto more adult-oriented titles so migrated to the Playstation.
Nintendo and Apple seem to have a common target audience and they both rely heavily on hardware sales:
I just finished playing Pikmin 3 which requires pointing and tap controls and that game was absolutely BREATHTAKING.
Nintendo has been making some stupid decisions lately and they need to be acquired by someone smarter. I would love to see Nintendo games on a sleek Apple console. Nintendo's latest hardware are anything but sleek.
The gamepad with the display is a strange design choice, especially as you can only have a single controller like that due to the cost:
[VIDEO]
It's too bulky and the stylus shouldn't be needed. The touchpad I posted earlier could replicate some of that UI just with an LED backlight array behind the touch surface shining through perforations or e-ink. These would be contextual buttons that can change to any kind of control and you'd be able to buy multiple controllers ok. This would allow media controls when playing movies too, you'd just hold it like a remote and it would change to show play, fast forward etc. as well as an iOS-style keyboard for text input.
Unless I misunderstood the previous poster or I misunderstood your response, it seems like his point was that the cost of these high-end SOCs would likely cause the AppleTV's retail price to have to go up, and it seems like you are talking about the space inside the box.
Thompson
Well yes you misunderstand, I'm talking about space on the SoC. Cost is a function of area, going to 14 nm would allow Apple to put a lot of functionality into a chip the same size as the one current,y in Apple TV. The cost of the chip would be similar, with a premium for the new process. In other words an updated SoC by itself wouldn't have a dramatic impact on the Apple TV.
Now that being said other features could have a big impact. One of those features is flash storage, there is no way to get around local storage if you want to support modern games. Waiting for a 25 GB download would be a major negative.
Not referring to iOS, just MBP's. The 'nonsense' I refer to is years of GPU hardware failures on Macs, none of which were Apple's fault,
Ultimately we could blame the EU here. These soldering issues have impacted a wide array of industries beyond the PC market.
I disagree profoundly with your 5 years statement with Macs. My MBP was luckily granted a new lease of life by Apple when my GPU totally failed in 2013, many were not as lucky and recent move by Apple corroborate my feelings that the GPUs have been an Achilles Heel in otherwise stellar equipment.
The problem is what can Apple do about this issue. To get the performance everybody demands out of a GPU you end up running them hot. I'm actually surprised that Apple was able to lower the clock rates on the GPU chips in the Mac Pro without getting skewered in the media.
Sorry, I am not sure why you are venting at me? The title, "Apple partner Imagination unveils PowerVR 'super-GPU'" seems more in-house than NVidia et al to me. I would just like to see better reliability from GPU cards and I've been a professional user of them since Apple was born so I have some experience. I am aware this is aimed at iOS devices but if you read AI regularly you might have read I have been saying for a long time this partnership could hold promise for Macs too. Hence I wrote : "In a year or two we may be saying goodbye Apple hardware Achilles Heel."
Or are you simply defending Nvidia? In which case that's fine.
Nothing personal, you just happened to be the one who posted most recent with the general consensus that discreet GPUs are "bad." To be honest, isn't Intel a "partner" but is generally shunned by AI? Remember, the first Macbook Air was powered by a custom Intel chip, but the crowd here is on a witchhunt for no good reason. Maybe it is a bit of a defense of Nvidia and AMD as I generally enjoy PC games, but this chip certainly wont replace any current Macbook's GPU as both Iris Pro and any Nvidia chip in the retina series is faster than this.
Nothing personal, you just happened to be the one who posted most recent with the general consensus that discreet GPUs are "bad." To be honest, isn't Intel a "partner" but is generally shunned by AI? Remember, the first Macbook Air was powered by a custom Intel chip, but the crowd here is on a witchhunt for no good reason. Maybe it is a bit of a defense of Nvidia and AMD as I generally enjoy PC games, but this chip certainly wont replace any current Macbook's GPU as both Iris Pro and any Nvidia chip in the retina series is faster than this.
Oh no I am all for them. My hope is that the new partnership ends up developing discrete GPUs. That was the point I tried to make so badly in my OP in this thread.
Discrete GPUs are essential in professionally used graphics Macs for a decent performance as it stands. I have never owned anything else. Whether it is Apple's design making them too hot or the maker's fault i don't know it has just gone on too long. I always buy MBP i7s (or the top MB de jour) with the top of the line GPU but have had three go bad over the years, all GPU failures. Only one was repaired under extended warranty two hit the scrap heap. I also bought them for the cheese grater Mac Pro and would have fun upgrading to the latest top of the line card from who ever made it. I go back to putting them in Apple ][s, let alone Macs
That all said, if Apple can one day come up with an integrated system that is low heat and more powerful than any alternatives then I'm all in.
This is no brainer news. When Apple announced and used 64-bit CPU iphone/ipad paved way/direction to future home entertainment hub that embed home-kit functionality to control home gadgets, video streaming, internet browser, music streaming and decent game console. Very large population, people(kids and adults) like to play video games that are good but not necessarily high end die hard gamers. Apple TV HUB fits right their with high end 64-bit CPU and PowerVR graphics.
What I cant quite figure out is why this GPU was announced at all. If Apple was planning on using this in a product, it would be hidden under that Apple Cone of Silence until then. Even Imagination's ability to make such a GPU ordinarily would be cloaked... This doesn't make sense to me...?
What I cant quite figure out is why this GPU was announced at all. If Apple was planning on using this in a product, it would be hidden under that Apple Cone of Silence until then.
Not even close! Imagination has announced technology that Apple ends up using months or sometimes years before Apple publicly announces its use. Just look at the GPUs in any recent A series APU, some of those GPU cores were public knowledge a year before they showed up in an Apple product.
Even Imagination's ability to make such a GPU ordinarily would be cloaked... This doesn't make sense to me...?
Huh? Every GPU Imagination has made is announced well before a containing chip hits the market. We have no idea if this makes any difference with respect to A9 or other coming Apple chips because Imagination has announced many chips over the years that Apple has never used.
What I cant quite figure out is why this GPU was announced at all. If Apple was planning on using this in a product, it would be hidden under that Apple Cone of Silence until then. Even Imagination's ability to make such a GPU ordinarily would be cloaked... This doesn't make sense to me...?
Imagination is not a part of Apple. The GPU in the iPhone 6 was first announced in January 2012.
I suspect the day isn't too far off that we will loose interest in the GPU in these devices. In Qualcomm 820 for example they are adding cognitive computing hardware. In Apples case the move to 14 nm offers them a lot of die space for other functionality even while improving the CPUs and GPUs. It will be interesting to see Apples approach here.
Comments
Why aren't the iMacs, which uses the exact same laptop class parts and in some cases the exact same parts included in the recall. Why isn't there news of windows laptops, which use the same GPU, failing? Last I checked Imagination is no more in house than ARM is.
If you added a GPU yourself of course you would call the manufacturer but if Apple sent you the computer, no matter what was in it it is their responsibility.
But then again why should I defend anyone when my Macbook Pro is included in this recall?
Yeah if they manage to get say 25 GFLOPs per Watt, the high-end chip would still be over 20W and would need active cooling. iOS products are about 5W. The Apple TV has a 5W power supply so it would need a bigger PSU. The chip cost would be higher too but another factor in the cost would be storage as you couldn't fit many games on the 8GB storage it has. It would need about 32GB minimum. Then there's the controller. You can't sell a console without a controller, nor can you sell one without games available and that won't be many in the App Store yet.
Consoles have been the ones that pushed for bypassing OpenGL and DirectX the way Metal does. John Carmack (Doom etc) was complaining about the PC side not allowing this so easily because of the huge variety of GPUs. Consoles like iOS devices have a much more limited target so optimizing is easier.
A lot of the size of games comes from textures. Every 3D object has a 2D image wrapped around it so all those texture images add up to a few GB. Another storage hog is audio:
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2014/03/12/respawn-actually-explains-why-titanfalls-install-is-so-huge/
"35 GB of uncompressed audio, which – while a rather obnoxious hassle to set up – makes the game run much better"
The game is 49GB. Most 360 and PS3 games are under 8GB. Next-gen games are huge:
http://www.guru3d.com/news-story/gta-v-for-pc-eats-away-65gb-of-storage-space.html
http://www.redbull.com/uk/en/games/stories/1331611223141/grand-theft-auto-by-numbers-10-mind-blowing-stats
"the Los Santos of GTA V measures at least 48.7 square miles - the budget for GTA V is reportedly over £170 million ($267.3 million) - only one Hollywood movie has cost more to make, and that was 2007’s Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, which cost a cool £190 million ($300 million) to make."
Tim Cook commented on gaming before:
http://www.theverge.com/2012/5/29/3051733/tim-cook-not-interested-in-console-business
He mostly dismissed the idea but "Cook was asked if the company was interested in bringing gaming experiences to televisions, responding: "It could be interesting."". He said something like this when he was asked about the watch:
http://allthingsd.com/20130528/tim-cook-wearable-computing-has-promise-but-must-be-compelling/
"I think the wrist is interesting."
Maybe that's his tell on what they're doing next. 'is interesting' is more definite than 'could be interesting'. They probably looked into it and Airplay gaming made sense but the console idea isn't so straightforward because they have to make a controller. I already designed a controller for them:
It would have 4 shoulder buttons but touch means it is context-sensitive. It would be no less comfortable to hold than the NES controller and the 3 pads would use the 4-corner springs for clicking anywhere. The magic trackpad is $69 but this would have a built-in flat battery and be no more than $49. The console would then be $199 with about 32GB storage vs the $99 Apple TV.
The big hurdle is getting AAA games support. There's loads of 360/PS3 games to port over of course. The console numbers aren't huge. The best selling console of all time was the PS2 with 155m units in 12 years. That's about 13m per year. The Apple TV is already close to that, Tim reported about 8m per year in the past. iOS devices sell over 200m in 1 year.
The Ouya console failed at this market and it even had game streaming with AAA titles. Even a single major AAA game missing means people want to buy another console. For a gamer, the question is why wouldn't you buy one of the major consoles? Why would you send $199 for an Apple TV box with hardly any games that you want to play? If they built up a library of 360/PS3 ports for launch then they're in but they'd have to get most of the biggest titles and they get locked down by Sony/Microsoft. Some games are even developed by them in-house.
The touch controller would allow types of games that would be difficult on consoles e.g:
[VIDEO]
The good thing is that if the gaming falls short, it's still an Apple TV, which people are buying without the gaming part. If parents have younger kids, it's $100 extra to keep them occupied with cheap games bought digitally as well as party games vs $300+ for a dedicated console with $40-60 games.
The top-end PowerVR would be a bit wasteful to use. Just the latest PowerVR for the iOS devices would stay passively cooled and rival last-gen consoles for quality. They'll limit games to 4GB-8GB anyway. Using the same chips as iPads means they save on volume purchases.
Actually, a console would be the ultimate implementation of metal. It is one platform with one set of hardware specs and low level access. The reason why games are so large is due to the high resolution models, textures, sounds, and any prerendered cutscenes.
Sorry, I am not sure why you are venting at me? The title, "Apple partner Imagination unveils PowerVR 'super-GPU'" seems more in-house than NVidia et al to me. I would just like to see better reliability from GPU cards and I've been a professional user of them since Apple was born so I have some experience. I am aware this is aimed at iOS devices but if you read AI regularly you might have read I have been saying for a long time this partnership could hold promise for Macs too. Hence I wrote : "In a year or two we may be saying goodbye Apple hardware Achilles Heel."
Or are you simply defending Nvidia? In which case that's fine.
Wii U already does this. I find it funny how people always dismiss Nintendo. I just finished playing Pikmin 3 which requires pointing and tap controls and that game was absolutely BREATHTAKING.
Nintendo has been making some stupid decisions lately and they need to be acquired by someone smarter. I would love to see Nintendo games on a sleek Apple console. Nintendo's latest hardware are anything but sleek.
Sorry, I am not sure why you are venting at me? The title, "Apple partner Imagination unveils PowerVR 'super-GPU'" seems more in-house than NVidia et al to me. I would just like to see better reliability from GPU cards and I've been a professional user of them since Apple was born so I have some experience. I am aware this is aimed at iOS devices but if you read AI regularly you might have read I have been saying for a long time this partnership could hold promise for Macs too. Hence I wrote : "In a year or two we may be saying goodbye Apple hardware Achilles Heel."
Or are you simply defending Nvidia? In which case that's fine.
Yeah, sorry for piling on you. We are so like bullies ;-). Hope you get your wish, great mac GPU very soon.
Probably on Mac Pros too but at least one can easily swap out a card in a Mac Pro so you don't hear that much about it as it is easily fixed and you can deal with the GPU vendor if necessary, directly. I had several cards replaced over the years as I always added the GPU cards in my Mac Pros myself. The MBPs are a different story and many have been plagued with GPU failures and it is a motherboard swap out then. Not always easy to get this done although now there has been some movement by Apple who hopefully put the screws on the third party manufacturers. This is why I am hoping for a more in house approach to GPU technology in general.
If I'd have to guess I'd say its cooling that's the main differentiator on macbook; heat of course is the major killer in electronic components. Was this an engineering issue from Apple (not enough cooling), or a quality control issue from the GPU producer, flaky components. Maybe a combination of both cause the problem.
It's just their target demographic, which is more casual gamers:
http://www.joystiq.com/2009/02/19/nielsen-wii-audience-is-youngest-ps3-audience-is-oldest/
"the Wii appeals to quite the broad spectrum of people, being especially popular among boys age 6 -11 and women age 25 - 34. Most interesting is the Wii's ability to captivate the older women audience, as the console's use by women over 35 is much higher than that of the Wii's competition. And they're apparently playing Wii Fit, Guitar Hero and Rock Band, games cited as favorites among that group."
It's the same reason iOS devices are generally dismissed for gaming. The players tend not to be too serious about games. It has taken a wrong turn because Nintendo had a huge part in making gaming what it is but Sony took advantage of the fact that kids who grew up on Nintendo wanted to move onto more adult-oriented titles so migrated to the Playstation.
Nintendo and Apple seem to have a common target audience and they both rely heavily on hardware sales:
http://www.zeldainformer.com/articles/a-deeper-analysis-of-nintendos-financials-why-they-cant-drop-hardware
Their software sales would improve on a platform like Apple's so it can make up a significant loss from hardware but it would be a risky move.
The gamepad with the display is a strange design choice, especially as you can only have a single controller like that due to the cost:
[VIDEO]
It's too bulky and the stylus shouldn't be needed. The touchpad I posted earlier could replicate some of that UI just with an LED backlight array behind the touch surface shining through perforations or e-ink. These would be contextual buttons that can change to any kind of control and you'd be able to buy multiple controllers ok. This would allow media controls when playing movies too, you'd just hold it like a remote and it would change to show play, fast forward etc. as well as an iOS-style keyboard for text input.
Well yes you misunderstand, I'm talking about space on the SoC. Cost is a function of area, going to 14 nm would allow Apple to put a lot of functionality into a chip the same size as the one current,y in Apple TV. The cost of the chip would be similar, with a premium for the new process. In other words an updated SoC by itself wouldn't have a dramatic impact on the Apple TV.
Now that being said other features could have a big impact. One of those features is flash storage, there is no way to get around local storage if you want to support modern games. Waiting for a 25 GB download would be a major negative.
Sorry, I am not sure why you are venting at me? The title, "Apple partner Imagination unveils PowerVR 'super-GPU'" seems more in-house than NVidia et al to me. I would just like to see better reliability from GPU cards and I've been a professional user of them since Apple was born so I have some experience. I am aware this is aimed at iOS devices but if you read AI regularly you might have read I have been saying for a long time this partnership could hold promise for Macs too. Hence I wrote : "In a year or two we may be saying goodbye Apple hardware Achilles Heel."
Or are you simply defending Nvidia? In which case that's fine.
Nothing personal, you just happened to be the one who posted most recent with the general consensus that discreet GPUs are "bad." To be honest, isn't Intel a "partner" but is generally shunned by AI? Remember, the first Macbook Air was powered by a custom Intel chip, but the crowd here is on a witchhunt for no good reason. Maybe it is a bit of a defense of Nvidia and AMD as I generally enjoy PC games, but this chip certainly wont replace any current Macbook's GPU as both Iris Pro and any Nvidia chip in the retina series is faster than this.
Oh no I am all for them. My hope is that the new partnership ends up developing discrete GPUs. That was the point I tried to make so badly in my OP in this thread.
Discrete GPUs are essential in professionally used graphics Macs for a decent performance as it stands. I have never owned anything else. Whether it is Apple's design making them too hot or the maker's fault i don't know it has just gone on too long. I always buy MBP i7s (or the top MB de jour) with the top of the line GPU but have had three go bad over the years, all GPU failures. Only one was repaired under extended warranty two hit the scrap heap. I also bought them for the cheese grater Mac Pro and would have fun upgrading to the latest top of the line card from who ever made it. I go back to putting them in Apple ][s, let alone Macs
That all said, if Apple can one day come up with an integrated system that is low heat and more powerful than any alternatives then I'm all in.
This is no brainer news. When Apple announced and used 64-bit CPU iphone/ipad paved way/direction to future home entertainment hub that embed home-kit functionality to control home gadgets, video streaming, internet browser, music streaming and decent game console. Very large population, people(kids and adults) like to play video games that are good but not necessarily high end die hard gamers. Apple TV HUB fits right their with high end 64-bit CPU and PowerVR graphics.
What I cant quite figure out is why this GPU was announced at all. If Apple was planning on using this in a product, it would be hidden under that Apple Cone of Silence until then. Even Imagination's ability to make such a GPU ordinarily would be cloaked... This doesn't make sense to me...?
Huh? Every GPU Imagination has made is announced well before a containing chip hits the market. We have no idea if this makes any difference with respect to A9 or other coming Apple chips because Imagination has announced many chips over the years that Apple has never used.
It is entirely possible Apple could engineer its own 32 cluster GPU using the same tech.
Imagination is not a part of Apple. The GPU in the iPhone 6 was first announced in January 2012.